Sanitary Crises and “No Contact” Aquaculture: Chilean Fish Farming During the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has inspired novel strategies for keeping worksites operational and workers safe, with varying degrees of success. In southern Chile, where more than a third of the world’s farmed salmon is produced, the industrial aquaculture sector has been largely successful at avoiding major disruptions and financial losses by mobilizing strategies developed during previous sanitary crises that threatened the health of fish and the industry itself. Here, I engage with the literature on crises and disasters to evaluate these strategies as well as their unintended consequences. I contend that many of the strategies developed to address COVID-19 as a sanitary crisis and prevent the spread of the virus have deepened the divisions between aquaculture firms and the remote coastal communities where they operate. These social and economic divisions have the potential to undermine the industry’s long-term viability.